Does anyone feel like this is the next-gen of forums?

[Martok]

Actually this isn't correct. Office 2007 runs just fine on Windows 10 as does a lot of other 10+ year old software.

Heh I was thinking older than that, I remember Window Vista and various applications that worked with Windows XP that required major updates to work with it. Anyway it's an imperfect example, I was just trying to illustrate that XenForo is not unique in having to rewrite it's software to move forward and for add-ons/applications then also needing to be rewritten.


The developers haven't completely rewritten XenForo 2.0 for the sake of it. Heck, if they could just carry on with the existing code and continue to add new features and incorporate new technologies easily I'm sure they would love to have done so. Clearly that's not possible though and they pretty much stated that when they announce the development of 2.0:

Even a quick glance at our Suggestion Forums will show that we've had bucket loads of feedback and suggestions from customers. Sometimes, implementing these suggestions requires seriously fundamental changes to the system, with ramifications for both our own code and that of add-ons, and we don't feel that a change with such far-reaching effects is appropriate for a x.X-level release (like 1.4).

They have spent 3 years (probably longer than they expected) developing the new version of the software. During that time, there has only been one major release of the XenForo 1.x series, that is XenForo 1.5. I can pretty much guarantee that some users will not have been paying the annual upgrades during that time (possibly since 1.5.0) whilst they waited for a new version with new features that they felt were worth paying for. Also XenForo 2.0 will remain at the same price for purchase and same annual upgrade cost as it has been since 2011, there's not much if anything that's the same price it was 6 years ago. So there's been a heck of a lot of work for likely reduced income (at least in part) during this time. The benefit though is that the devs now have a modern framework that releases them from the shackles of XenForo 1.x (which was good in its time but isn't fit for purpose for long term development) so they can develop a better XenForo with more features that users want along with new technologies from the web (plus we'll likely find that some features that currently require add-ons will start to be incorporated into XenForo 2.1 and above). Similarly add-on developers can now write add-ons more easily and do things that likely wouldn't have been possible with XenForo 1.x.

As has been said, there is no need to move away from XenForo 1.5 if everything is working as expected. Many sites continued to work with vBulletin 3.x and 4.x versions for years after main development ceased. So don't move if you don't have to, only move to 2.x if and when it has must-have features for your site.

 

[Mike Fara]

That is not the cost of progress, that is a company choosing to start over and forcing their consumer to follow suite.

In a free market system, you are not "forced" to do anything. You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to. Also, the new version CLEARLY takes better advantage of newer web standards and may even be more SEO and developer friendly. These things HAPPEN because that IS the cost of progress. You can tell that, even in this preview version, the software is better integrated, roughly loads better, is easier to use, etc. People who say, "You can install the default XF2 theme on XF1" are missing the point. This opens the door for further advancement. It provides a new framework to move forward and not back. Entropy is a *****.

 

[HotRodCarts]

I hate it when people compare things like this...

I wasn't comparing them I was just pointing out something someone else posted was false.
I hate when people don't read a thread before replying to it. lol


With that said I'm happy to see the xF update and considering I only use 2 add-ons XFMG and XFRM I'm not to worried about add-ons not working.

 

[Alpha1]

Addons for vbulletin 4 do not work on vbulletin 5.
Addons for IPS 3 do not work for IPS 4.
Addons for Magento 1 do not work for Magento 2.
This happens with pretty much any web application software. You cant keep up with the times unless you rewrite the software a few times per decade. XF2 was announced a very long time ago so its not like no one saw that one coming.

 

[RobinHood]

The consumer is not making developers rewrite the add-on's Xenforo is

They kind of are, because it's the consumer who decides if the software is fit for their purpose. If it's not, they'll request more features. In order to accomodate those features the devs need to adapt and rewrite to adapt to the market demand. And the market is demanding a significant overhaul to forum and independent self hosted community tech.

But If you think about how xenforo is basically the core, and relies on the extra add-on's developers create for their software. The X amount of add-ons that have been made and purchased over the years basically help run the software.

I'm totally with you on this one. There's been a long laundry list of 'core features' many admins have been missing since XF's inception. They had to prioritise at the time to get the core to where it is today. That's cool and all, but it's also been tough on some admins. Hopefully now that they have such a decent market share they'll be able to focus on fleshing out some of these 'core requirements' after 2.0 is released, you've just got to hang tight

So now if I was to buy xen2 I would be starting all over again from scratch. (No add-ons because they are all legacy)Then I have to wait for each of the developers I purchased a add-on from to rewrite the add-on for xen2. Then I have to now spend money on renewing the add-on so it functions with xen2. So on my site I have purchased a ton of add-ons and had some custom add-ons made specifically for my site. It will be a good amount of money I will have to spend to bring back all of the add-on's to get my site functioning the same. (Mind Blowing & Disturbing.)

Welcome to the world of running and administering your own self hosted independent community. Fun, isn't it?

It's a very valid point though. As incredibly talented and capable as the XF 3 Musketeers (and their mod support team) are, it does make you wonder how much better the core software could be and how much further along we could be if there were a few more solid devs on board. It's incredibly admirable that they've taken no outside investment (as far as I'm aware), to remain completely independent, but in this day and age of seed investment, angel investors and fast moving tech, is this conservative approach actually a holding back forums and independent online communities from progressing as a whole? I'm not sure? What do you think?

I'm not judging or saying there should be an imminent change or anything. Just trying to point out that it's pretty insane that only 3 core devs plus some dedicated mods got us to this stage. Is it time to ramp it up to stay relevant in this cross platform mobile age of highly competitive social media apps competing for all our attention?

 

[Robust]

I don't think XF2 is a next generation of forum software.

But, it's certainly so, so much better as far as the backend code goes. As far as frontend goes, it's so much sleeker and more intuitive imo.
The XF team should be proud of what they've made, even if it took us a while to get here

I think this is a forum software that pleases both the conservative forum admins, and is something some of us 'progressives' in the industry can tweak to make into something extremely powerful and modern. It's pretty powerful. I'm happy with the end result.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

That is not the cost of progress, that is a company choosing to start over and forcing their consumer to follow suite. Which in term forces them spend more money on add-on they already paid for to use.

I see this as your major concern. You have it all wrong. No one is forcing you or anyone to be a lemming.

 

[TPerry]

That is not the cost of progress, that is a company choosing to start over and forcing their consumer to follow suite. Which in term forces them spend more money on add-on they already paid for to use

And is very typical. Same thing happened with IPS 4.x series. Some of those developers considered their add-ons a NEW add-on and you were required to re-purchase it again.

So why should I have to pay when xenforo should make the current add-on backwards compatible.

You don't have to pay... you can continue to use the version that your add-ons are designed to work with.
Look at it like expecting the motor of a 2017 Ford Mustang (V-8) to fit right into the Foxbody Mustang. There are core underpinning improvements that are made that will not allow the parts/components to be interchangeable.
Your issue is not so much with XF and then "allowing backwards compatibility" (which would basically invalidate the improvements made) but with the add-on developers themselves. Since there is a recoding needed, an upgrade fee could (and may times is) expected.

That's one of the downfalls of getting to be to dependent upon add-ons.

 

[snoopy5]

I use XF 2.0 on my mobile all the time. It's a great experience and superior to XF 1.x in almost every way.

Feel free to make some constructive suggestions once you're able. You've been using the XF2 demo for quite some time so that feedback would have been useful earlier, but we'll take it on board and see what we can do if there happens to be any actionable feedback.

Sorry, but I have to disagree here. We had a huge discussion over 12 pages starting in March 2016 about the future of forums.

if i would be the owner of XF I really would have read all kind of these discussions and making notes to get great feedback from "the front" of the people who actually fight each day against the competition - be it other forum software or social media.

if you ignore what your customers are saying just because they did not put it in the subforum you want it to, I do not kniw hiw XF wants to survive in 5 years.

read it again:

https://xenforo.com/community/threa...ms-vs-social-media.114387/page-6#post-1056415

no management of a modern company can afford to ignore those really big hints. Why XF did not research at that time and made a competition analysis?

Does XF actually knows what others make better or worse?

i mean it is great that XF2 is coming, but what exactly is significantly different in the usability for the enduser compared to XF1.5 or vbulletin or IPB?

there is a reason why facebook, twitter, instagram and flickr have such a success. this succes is not by accident. it is a strategy of those companies.

Easy and simple to use. Optimized for smartphones.

so how many clicks a XF2 forum-user has to make to post an image or a comment?

how many clicks to login into XF2 with my facebook or twitter or instagram or flickr account?

 

[Robust]

@snoopy5 Forums aren't social networks. The amount of clicks to do activities like register or make threads has been decreased. Common UI actions are now more conveniently placed, as you can see on this demo site.

XenForo does not serve end consumers like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Their customers are businesses, generally conservative forum admins. XenForo makes money when these people buy the product, and they buy the product when it is an improved version of what they're used to. People don't like change.

I don't think XF2 is bad, taking into account that it is a forum software and not a social network, I actually think it's great.

 

[Chris D]

No need to read it again, we read it, just like we read the majority of the feedback posted. It doesn't mean we have to agree with it, nor do we have to agree with the assertion that a vocal minority mirrors the opinion of the silent majority. I'm sure many people will vouch for the fact that over the last 12 months especially we have been listening, we have been making changes and the majority of people are very happy.

Easy and simple to use. Optimized for smartphones.

That's exactly what we aimed for, and exactly what we achieved. There's always room for improvement, but luckily XF 2.0 isn't the last ever version of XenForo so there's plenty of time to take on board additional feedback, especially as more and more people start adopting XF 2.0 and then implement those changes in the future.

so how many clicks a XF2 forum-user has to make to post an image or a comment?

The simple answer is: exactly the same as Facebook.

To make that comparison, you have to be using both applications in the same way. So in a forum that is to choose a topic you want to discuss (pick a forum), enter the content and submit. In Facebook, the comparable action to that is to pick a group (really the only comparable forum functionality in Facebook), enter the content and submit.

So from the XF.com forum list the clicks are as follows:

1. Click a forum
2. Click "Post a thread"
3. Type the content
4. Click "Post thread"

For the Facebook homepage the clicks are as follows:

1. Click Groups in the sidebar
2. Click the desired group
3. Click in the "Write something here" box
4. Type the content
5. Click "Post"

That's actually more clicks than it takes on a forum, but perhaps there is an additional click in a forum because you have to enter a title as well as a post...

There's definitely some value to a lot of the feedback, and we'll keep on listening until there is an appropriate time to act upon it. But for now, it's time to let us focus on releasing what we've built (which is arguably more than many expected) so we can actually reach that point.

 

[Steve F]

I think there is some misconception of what all this feedback if implemented would do. For one it isn't going to magically make your site gain a slew of members. What does gain members is content or a service your provide (such as support for a product). I just spent an annoyingly amount of time registering on a forum (Not XenForo) just to ask a question for my Jeep. I wished the site had been running XenForo as I would have been done in 30 seconds. Point is, if you offer a service or content people are interested in they'll sign up no matter the clicks, how many fields are on the register form, or if your site is pink with purple elephants in the background (bit of exaggeration there ).

I think some need to really look at what XF is, where it's at, make suggestions in a constructive manner, and help the developers mold this software into something everyone will want to use. XF2 is a great step toward what everyone wants but it all can't be done in a single upgrade/version - Lets chip away at it and look forward to what they can do in XF 2.1.

 

[snoopy5]

@snoopy5 Forums aren't social networks. ....

Sorry, but here I do have to speak up, because I am afraid with that kind offered feedback, XF development will go in the wrong direction.

I do think that many do not see yet where we are going with the internet. It does not matter how we call it. Whether it is "social media" or "forums". It does not matter how you lable it. The key is: "where are the people?" and not: "what do I want to have?"

Look at the current 10-16 year old kids. They do not care about internet like we are used to it. They do not know forums or Google search. They do not have computers or laptops. They only have smartphones. And because of convenience, they only use apps like facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, whatsapp, threema, signal etc. Because all their friends do use it and it is fast and "good enough" for what they want to do with it.

So now look at this over the time. In 2017 you have those 10-16 years old who are deeply in the social media how we "old guys" call it. They will likely call it "my world". They get everything there what they want. They do not need anything outside of their world/social media. And this is our problem.

With facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, whatsapp, we have a world with a big wall between them, the new generation, inside and us (old guys) on the other side of that wall. Facebook is the new AOL. What AOL did not succeed in in the eighties, to make an internet within the internet and controlling what is going on inside, what is offered etc, that is facebook doing now successfully! Do you realize this?

So if we want to have at some point this new generation in our forums once those 10-16 year old guys are then maybe 25 or 30 years old, we have to be able to make it as easy as possible to come over the wall for a few seconds.

Zuckerberg from Facebook announced this year, that they will shift their focus from now on to "facebook groups" and communities. He is smart. With that step, he can close the door to the last big advantage for people interaction outside of facebook.

So expect a lot of changes there within the next 12 months, which will be direct competition to forums out side of facebook. They will become better, not worse. They will copy the good ideas from our forums and implement them into their world. This damn world with the big wall around them.

@snoopy5 ...
XenForo does not serve end consumers like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Their customers are businesses, generally conservative forum admins. XenForo makes money when these people buy the product, and they buy the product when it is an improved version of what they're used to. People don't like change....

This is IMHO a wrong assumption. This assumption can break all of us our neck longterm.

The only thing we, the customers (the admins), have to care about is how to maintain and grow our forums. Maybe also for some of us how to make money with it.

It does not matter what we like and what we are used to. It only matters how we can grow. And that depends on our users preferences and not on our personal preference. User preferences are changing over the time. We have to change with them or we are all dead in the long run.

I do not like social media. I never was part of facebook et alli. But I have to now, whether I like it or not. Because I can not survive as a forum owner, if I do ignore the people inside of facebook etc. There will be not enought people out there for so many forums with overlapping content.

We only can grow our communities, if we offer a community place people are interested in compared to all alternatives out there. Especially what they used to use for over 10 years. And this is social media. This is the benchmark we are measured against. Of course content is necessary for that. But content is everywhere nowadays. The time is over where you could say "forum= content" and "social media=nonsense".

So the amount of non-social media users is shrinking dramatically althought the number of forums are still the same. And the amount of social media users is exploding. Even worse for us, at the same time the social media companies improve their products and offer more and more forum-like features inside of their own social media world.

We can not ignore that only because we do not like it. And XF should better focus on the enduser of "communities" and forget about lables like "forum", "chat" or "social media". It is all about the same: meeting people and exchange opinions and experiences. Call it like you want to.

The name will not change what people are doing there. So XF should focus on that. Because otherwise, all the sudden we old guys do not have the money anymore (not enough users in our forums) to run a community forum and then we do not buy licences anymore.

That is a simple domino effect. Make the end user happy, which makes the forum owner happy, which makes XF sell more licences. Ignore the needs of the end user, forum owners have to close down forums more and more and then less XF licences will be sold.

So we need to open wide our forum-doors, as much as possible to get new users who are used to something else. Make it new users as easy as possible to interact with our old users without loosing connection to their old friends in their "social media world". Give new users a great user experience when using our forums. Help them to have "fun", instead of "here is the content, so bite the bullet". Read books of Steve Krug or Jakob Nielson about it. There is an old rule in website design and usability tests:

Don't make them think!

This rule has to be implemented in every step a feature is implemented in a forum software or how to post and to share or how to login or register.

 

[Dnyan]

No one can beat xF2 now.

xF is the first and lst choice if you are making forum.

I did a analysis on all forum soft a month back only

To my all needs of new generation xF2 wins the battle by showing god like performance.

And it helps me in performing well too.

 

[audiokid]

Sorry, but here I do have to speak up, because I am afraid with that kind offered feedback, XF development will go in the wrong direction. I do think that many do not see yet where we are going with the internet. It does not matter how we call it. Whether it is "social media" or "forums". It does not matter how you lable it. The key is: "where are the people?" and not: "what do I want to have?" Look at the current 10-16 year old kids. They do not care about internet like we are used to it. They do not know forums or Google search. They do not have computers or laptops. They only have smartphones. And because of convenience, they only use apps like facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, whatsapp, threema, signal etc. Because all their friends do use it and it is fast and "good enough" for what they want to do with it. So now look at this over the time. In 2017 you have those 10-16 years old who are deeply in the social media how we "old guys" call it. They will likely call it "my world". They get everything there what they want. They do not need anything outside of their world/social media. And this is our problem. With facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, whatsapp, we have a world with a big wall between them, the new generation, inside and us (old guys) on the other side of that wall. Facebook is the new AOL. What AOL did not succeed in in the eighties, to make an internet within the internet and controlling what is going on inside, what is offered etc, that is facebook doing now successfully! Do you realize this? So if we want to have at some point this new generation in our forums once those 10-16 year old guys are then maybe 25 or 30 years old, we have to be able to make it as easy as possible to come over the wall for a few seconds. Zuckerberg from Facebook announced this year, that they will shift their focus from now on to "facebook groups" and communities. He is smart. With that step, he can close the door to the last big advantage for people interaction outside of facebook. So expect a lot of changes there within the next 12 months, which will be direct competition to forums out side of facebook. They will become better, not worse. They will copy the good ideas from our forums and implement them into their world. This damn world with the big wall around them.

Totally agree.

 

[delicatebobster]

Sorry, but here I do have to speak up, because I am afraid with that kind offered feedback, XF development will go in the wrong direction.

I do think that many do not see yet where we are going with the internet. It does not matter how we call it. Whether it is "social media" or "forums". It does not matter how you lable it. The key is: "where are the people?" and not: "what do I want to have?"

Look at the current 10-16 year old kids. They do not care about internet like we are used to it. They do not know forums or Google search. They do not have computers or laptops. They only have smartphones. And because of convenience, they only use apps like facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, whatsapp, threema, signal etc. Because all their friends do use it and it is fast and "good enough" for what they want to do with it.

So now look at this over the time. In 2017 you have those 10-16 years old who are deeply in the social media how we "old guys" call it. They will likely call it "my world". They get everything there what they want. They do not need anything outside of their world/social media. And this is our problem.

With facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, whatsapp, we have a world with a big wall between them, the new generation, inside and us (old guys) on the other side of that wall. Facebook is the new AOL. What AOL did not succeed in in the eighties, to make an internet within the internet and controlling what is going on inside, what is offered etc, that is facebook doing now successfully! Do you realize this?

So if we want to have at some point this new generation in our forums once those 10-16 year old guys are then maybe 25 or 30 years old, we have to be able to make it as easy as possible to come over the wall for a few seconds.

Zuckerberg from Facebook announced this year, that they will shift their focus from now on to "facebook groups" and communities. He is smart. With that step, he can close the door to the last big advantage for people interaction outside of facebook.

So expect a lot of changes there within the next 12 months, which will be direct competition to forums out side of facebook. They will become better, not worse. They will copy the good ideas from our forums and implement them into their world. This damn world with the big wall around them.



This is IMHO a wrong assumption. This assumption can break all of us our neck longterm.

The only thing we, the customers (the admins), have to care about is how to maintain and grow our forums. Maybe also for some of us how to make money with it.

It does not matter what we like and what we are used to. It only matters how we can grow. And that depends on our users preferences and not on our personal preference. User preferences are changing over the time. We have to change with them or we are all dead in the long run.

I do not like social media. I never was part of facebook et alli. But I have to now, whether I like it or not. Because I can not survive as a forum owner, if I do ignore the people inside of facebook etc. There will be not enought people out there for so many forums with overlapping content.

We only can grow our communities, if we offer a community place people are interested in compared to all alternatives out there. Especially what they used to use for over 10 years. And this is social media. This is the benchmark we are measured against. Of course content is necessary for that. But content is everywhere nowadays. The time is over where you could say "forum= content" and "social media=nonsense".

So the amount of non-social media users is shrinking dramatically althought the number of forums are still the same. And the amount of social media users is exploding. Even worse for us, at the same time the social media companies improve their products and offer more and more forum-like features inside of their own social media world.

We can not ignore that only because we do not like it. And XF should better focus on the enduser of "communities" and forget about lables like "forum", "chat" or "social media". It is all about the same: meeting people and exchange opinions and experiences. Call it like you want to.

The name will not change what people are doing there. So XF should focus on that. Because otherwise, all the sudden we old guys do not have the money anymore (not enough users in our forums) to run a community forum and then we do not buy licences anymore.

That is a simple domino effect. Make the end user happy, which makes the forum owner happy, which makes XF sell more licences. Ignore the needs of the end user, forum owners have to close down forums more and more and then less XF licences will be sold.

So we need to open wide our forum-doors, as much as possible to get new users who are used to something else. Make it new users as easy as possible to interact with our old users without loosing connection to their old friends in their "social media world". Give new users a great user experience when using our forums. Help them to have "fun", instead of "here is the content, so bite the bullet". Read books of Steve Krug or Jakob Nielson about it. There is an old rule in website design and usability tests:

Don't make them think!

This rule has to be implemented in every step a feature is implemented in a forum software or how to post and to share or how to login or register.

Best post ever wish everyone else thought like you

 

[TPerry]

Zuckerberg from Facebook announced this year, that they will shift their focus from now on to "facebook groups" and communities. He is smart. With that step, he can close the door to the last big advantage for people interaction outside of facebook.

And the issue you will come across will be the "moderation" - or what many will call the choking of of - alternative thoughts that Zuckerberg and his cronies don't agree with. If you don't toe their line, then you lose your place in their ecosphere. THAT is the weakness of social media sites like FB.
With stand-alone scripts, you are not at the mercy of a central power that wants to play GOD for all. You can always find a site that allows you to post without fear of being forced away.

As for the app aspect... that's something that will not be "easily" done unless it's a bare bones setup. I keep seeing this BS about how great the app for FB is compared to hitting XF sites (or any forum) on a mobile device... but you only hear the APP comparison to the browser of the forum POV. Compare browser to browser and they are very similar. Where FB (and singular location sites that are similar) have a benefit is they only have ONE interface that they have to provide access to.

 

[RobinHood]

. I keep seeing this BS about how great the app for FB is compared to hitting XF sites (or any forum) on a mobile device

It's not BS. It's about keeping the conversation flowing and re-engaging the right users at the right time.

Without having a native app a forum will never have full control over the entire user notification experience. From being live on desktop site, to being idle on desktop, to being live in the app, to being offline on desktop, but available on standby on their phone, to being completely offline on both desktop on mobile.

Most of the current app implementations are quite crude in their notification management. You usually either get one or you don't. There's very little, if any checks or logic to evaluate whether that user really needs that intrusive notification on their phone. However if it's important, then we need to ensure that it does get there.

Does the user only need an alert in the alerts bar while actually browsing the site when the alert comes in?
Or do they need a desktop browser notification?
Or do they need an email notification?
Or do they need a mobile push notification?
If they're completely offline do we need to combine some of the notifications and deliver them to their phone or browser as a summary when they get back online so we don't bombard them? Or should we discard them completely and let them discover them when they visit the site again in the browser?
Or some combination of the lot?

Between the facebook desktop browser experience, the desktop Messenger experience and their two corresponding mobile apps they have full control over the engagement process and ensure that you get connected to the right conversations on the right device, at the right times while trying to minimise notification fatigue, whether it's public threads or private messaging.

The Messenger app was previously part of the core facebook app and it became so large, active and integral to the experience of connecting people (isn't that what forums are supposed to do?) that they created an completely separate website and app for it. People within a given community want to also be able to chat to each other in private one on one and private group situations.

Users these days have access to Skype, iMessage, What'sApp, Messenger, Slack, Discord - all these messaging services and community ecosystems have native apps with truly instant messaging so you can keep the conversation flowing no matter where you are. Users expect this, and when they try to have a conversation with one or more people in Private Conversations or certain types of threads on forums, it's not a good experience, so some will switch back to something else and leave the site - especially seeing as so many users and cliques on forums these days are also already connected to each other on these other social networks.

Personal Conversations are pretty rubbish on forums for any kind of flowing conversation unless you're willing to keep refreshing the page. It's more like an antiquated email system rather than having a actual conversation. (Although, still very good if you do actually need to write very detailed long messages to each other complete with images, attachments, quotes, formatting etc.) But like email, it doesn't necessarily lend itself to a primarily text chatty style of conversation, which a lot of people want.

It certainly won't be easy to transfer this kind of mobile interface and cross platform notification experience and management to our own forum social networks. But in the long run it will definitely be necessary. TapaTalk sees this, and so do the people who invested $5.8M in the company and see the demand for it. They're 7 years ahead of the game on this and so far I've seen nothing to compete with it.

Now here we are nearing the end of 2017, a time where for many admins an increasing percentage of their users are spending the majority of the time interacting with the forum through a single 3rd party app that only gives them access to the message board and PM part of their site, an app that they have little to no control over, and there's no other alternatives any where near the quality, or within their price range.

Having this one app wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if they weren't pushing these users and new admins to create their own internal groups ecosystem drawing traffic away from your forums, if the app was more flexible in terms of giving the users access to other areas forums apart from the message boards, if they seemed to respect the admins a bit more who provide them with access to the entirety of their databases etc. etc.

you only hear the APP comparison to the browser of the forum POV.

That's because we don't have any app to compare it to, apart from Tapatalk, which feature wise is actually really good to use as a user, which is partly why I find this all so frustrating. They even worked out a deal with Vimeo to enable off site video upload to posts through their app. How are they the only company to have done this with forums and it's only available through an app and it was done back in 2014?

Users are going and in some cases have gone mobile. Give us a decent app either from XF or some other company that starts rolling out features comparable to TapaTalk and Facebook and we'll start comparing app to app. It will be tough, but there's got to be a solution that can make classic forums truly cross platform community experiences, fully utilising what each platform has to offer.

 

[TPerry]

It's not BS. It's about keeping the conversation flowing and re-engaging the right users at the right time.

No, it's PURE BS. You can't realistically compare the ability of an app specifically coded for a singular site against a script that uses (depending on where implemented) a variety of add-ons. The TRUE (read realistic) comparator is using the browser based version of each site.
The use of an app presents a different implementation and any attempt at doing one for scripts will always be half-assed since they can't implement ability to utilize the add-ons that are in use on one site and not on another.
That is a weakness that apparently some "pie in the sky" admins fail to overlook. FB/Instagram/whatever has ONE site they are required to interface with.... not 130K (example figure as I don't have specific numbers) different ones.

Funny you should mention tapatalk... one of the biggest complaints against it is it does NOT allow the interaction with add-ons that may be important to the site (say a gallery, a commerce package, a classifieds section provided by an add-on) or many other add-on dependent features.
$5.8 million is a drop in the bucket on what it would cost... and that would be required from EVERY script developer.
Facebook spent $860 million last year to to deliver and distribute its products last year. The bulk of that money was related to data center equipment, staff, and operating costs.

Stop and think of the coding nightmare that would be present... ALL they can provide is a bare bones interface to the most common feature set.

It will be tough,

No, it will be nigh on impossible at the level of integration that would be required for a high level of user interaction. That will require a total shift in the design paradigm of scripts - and most likely a stance of the use of NO add-ons allowed (or only specifically approved ones but with no modifications).

Remember.... and I can't emphasize this enough.... those social media sites ONLY have to provide an interface to a singular site. Forum scripts vary on what is needed dependent upon where they are ran.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Here's an idea. If someone came up with a bare-bones app for Xenforo forums which allowed the use of XF, XFMG, XFRM, and XFESE (the core and 3 official addons) and then had it set up in such a way that a 3rd party addon developer could write a plug-in or code section that would allow for their addon to work in the app (i.e. modular)...would that work?

Of course, this would require the addon developer to either learn how to code for the mobile app (in multiple languages, Android, iOS, etc) or pay for someone to do it for them. Either way, $$$. But one would think there would be a method of allowing a "mobile app addon extension" or something like that